‘The Life I Left Behind’ by Colette McBeth

After reading a succession of rather heavy literary novels (some of which are yet to be reviewed), I decided I needed to immerse myself in a psychological thriller — my palette cleanser of choice — which is how I came to read Colette McBeth’s The Life I Left Behind.

Trio of narrators

The story, which is set in West London (in locations I know very well), has three different narrators, who take it in turns to tell the story in alternate chapters.

The first is Melody Pieterson, a woman who survived an attempt on her life five years earlier and lived to tell the tale. But she’s now so psychologically scarred she can barely function and never leaves the house in the Surrey countryside that she shares with her fiancé, a doctor called Sam.

Then there is Eve Elliot, a freelance TV producer, who is found dead in the same heavily wooded location that Melody was discovered. She narrates her version of events from beyond the grave.

And finally there is Detective Inspector Victoria Rutter, who investigated Melody’s case, in which the attempted murderer was put behind bars. That man, David Alden, has recently been released from prison, so has he struck once again? DI Rutter isn’t quite so sure…

Twists and turns

The Life I Left Behind is full of lots of creepy twists, chilling turns and false leads. The main twist comes fairly early on when the identity of Melody’s attempted murderer is called into question. That’s because Eve had recently been researching the idea that David had been wrongly convicted — she had found new evidence which threw the guilty verdict into doubt — and had met with David on the night of her murder. What would he have to gain in killing the person who was championing his innocence?

There are lots of other minor twists as the story works towards its inevitable conclusion of revealing the identity of the real killer.

It is to the author’s credit that I failed to guess the ending. Indeed, the denouement is nicely done; it’s restrained yet satisfying, which can be quite a feat to pull off in this genre which so often resorts to over-the-top drama or ties up everything in too neat a package.

Compelling but flawed

But while the plot is compelling and original, the book does have a few flaws, not the least of which is David’s wrongful conviction, which seems slightly preposterous and not truly rooted in reality. The only way I could enjoy this story was to suspend belief and try not to worry about the fact that the police and David’s own defence counsel hadn’t done their jobs properly.

And the characters — including the trio of subsidiary male ones — while all well-drawn, are weak, shallow and manipulative. I know you don’t need to like characters to like a book, but in a psychological thriller it helps to at least empathise with the victim so you can will them to escape from the danger that threatens them. In this case, I couldn’t care less about Melody — and Eve, well, she was already dead, so what was the point?

All in all, The Life I Left Behind is a fairly average psychological thriller — although all the four- and five-star reviews on Amazon might suggest otherwise.

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6 thoughts on “‘The Life I Left Behind’ by Colette McBeth”

I don’t read a lot of thrillers (although, I always want to when I hear about them), but it seems impressive to me that you couldn’t guess the ending. What are a couple of psychological thrillers you would be most likely to recommend?

I really enjoyed this book, though I agree it did seem a little outlandish that the defense had bungled up so much. Though not completely unreasonable. I didn’t clue onto the ending till near the climax, which impressed me. I like to be fooled.

Police / solicitors etc make mistakes all the time, but I couldn’t believe a defence counsel wouldn’t test whether David could physically drive from one location to another in a realistic time, and that they wouldn’t challenge the CCTV evidence, which was so poor that no one could even identify the colour of the car! And because I couldn’t believe that that would happen in real life, I struggled to find the rest of the story believable. Once I suspended belief, it was okay, but I do think it’s a major failing of the novel. The surprise ending did make up for it though 😉

I liked this – though would only rate it 4 star as, now knowing how it ends, I’m not sure I’d re-read it. With some thrillers, I like to read them again hoping to spot the hints that lead to the big reveal but I don’t think this would hold my attention. Maybe the incompetence of the original police investigation was stretching things a little but I still enjoyed it.